It was a pretty laid back fall break for us. As I said last week, we had no travels on the agenda and hoped for good weather so we could do some fun stuff locally.
Things started off as well as I could ask: we had been home five minutes on Wednesday when I got a call from the mom of one of M’s friends, asking if she wanted to come over and spend the night. Ten minutes later I was dropping M off and we were down a kid. L had playdates both Thursday and Friday, and C had a friend over to spend the night Friday. Those four get togethers really made the first half of the weekend fly. We also squeezed in flu shots Thursday, which is the highlight of any good fall break!
Saturday we went down to the zoo for the first time since early July. We timed it to beat the afternoon rush, when the Zoo Boo event started. That was smart thinking. We had no trouble parking or walking around when we arrived. By the time we left, the parking lot was almost completely full and there were parts of the park that were hard to move around in because of all the people. We tried the new gondola ride for the first time, which the girls really enjoyed. I imagine it’s more awesome on warmer days when the orangutans are crawling on their walkways that are also 50 feet above the ground. They had no interest in coming out on a cool, fall day.
Sunday was L’s final soccer game of the year. She had been struggling with a bad cough for several days and did not play with her usual energy. I had just made a comment about her kind of dragging ass when she got the ball on the right wing, dribbled through a couple defenders, and sent a shot toward the goal from outside the box. She curled it around the defense and snuck it between the goalie and the far post for her ninth goal of the season. After the game she was crying, not because she was sad the season was over, but because she felt so bad.
Her team ended up going 2–5–1. Her nine goals led the team. The second leading scorer was the smallest boy on the team, so power to the little kids I guess. She still loves soccer, and did great for being one of the smallest kids in her first year in U10. She’ll play in the spring for sure, but next fall she’s already talking about wanting to run cross country and play kickball for St. P’s, so we’ll see if she takes a season off from soccer.
The only other highlight of our fall break was we spent some time planning our next trip, which will come in early 2017. But more about that later.
This is a weird week for us, too. Wednesday is teacher conference day. In the past St. P’s did two half days with conferences in the afternoon. This year the school takes Wednesday off and that entire day/evening is devoted to conferences. So school today and tomorrow, Wednesday off, then back on Thursday and Friday. That’s not going to throw anyone off.